[ExI] stoopid kwestchyuns

[William Flynn Wallace]

What you seem to be describing here is a quasi-omniscient agent. One
that knows the present state of the universe but does not know the past or
future states
 stuart
This has totally blown my mind for today.  If it were a truly intelligent
thing, it could easily 'predict' the past.  How did things get this way?
It must have been that.........

Similarly, knowing the above means being able to predict the future with
some accuracy from the theories the thing developed in understanding the
past.

On the other hand, if the past is a complete mystery, the thing cannot
understand the present at all, much less the future.  It can know 'what'
but not 'how' or 'why'.  Just descriptive concepts of what is out there.

bill w

On Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 8:58 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Quoting Darin Sunley:
>
> > Yes. they are different, and different in a structurally interesting way.
>
> > An omniscient agent contains a structure that is homeomorphic with its
> > entire containing universe [possibly except for itself, depending on what
> > you mean by omniscience],
>
> I mean omniscience literally as "knowing all", which by definition
> includes the self and all possible pasts, presents, and futures.
> Although I do agree you run into Russell's self-containing-set
> paradoxes in that direction.
>
> > and mechanisms for continuously updating that
> > structure to keep it in correspondence with the entire containing
> universe.
>
> What you seem to be describing here is a quasi-omniscient agent. One
> that knows the present state of the universe but does not know the
> past or future states. Why would a truly omniscient agent need to
> update? It already knows all by definition doesn't it? That includes
> itself and all possible pasts and futures. Since an omniscient agent
> already knows all, then it is impossible for an omniscient agent to be
> informed by anything. Thus all communication directed toward an
> omniscient agent contains zero Shannon entropy/information relative to
> that agent. Thus calling into question whether an omniscient agent has
> any agency at all.
>
> As Will Steinberg observed it does seem to reduce to the question of
> free will: If God already knows everything that is going to happen
> including his own future decisions and their outcomes, then does God
> have free will?
>
> > A totally ignorant agent contains no internal structures with any
> > correspondence to the structure of the containing universe except by
> > chance, and no mechanisms to synchronize any part of that structure with
> > any part of the surrounding universe.
>
> Are not the various physical and chemical equilibria examples of
> synchronization with the surrounding universe? What about quantum
> entanglement?
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
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